


Pokemon Black Sun

by squidiculous



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Horror, Mystery, Pallet Town, Violence, kanto
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2018-07-24 03:45:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7492233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squidiculous/pseuds/squidiculous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After returning to Pallet Town, Ash is drawn into the center of a mysterious evil, and he must fight harder than ever before to defeat it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Pallet Town has always been a pleasant place, free of natural disasters, plagues and organized crime. Situated sparsely upon low rolling hills, the town's tidy houses keep quiet people, who go about their own business and work their private gardens. Mired in the peace that has dominated since the founding of Pallet Town, its residents do not sense the darkness that has begun to reach out and hook its claws.

The sky above is blue and cloudless, owning a few small birds. Flora and produce flourish as usual. Women smile and wave at their neighbors as they pass with bags of groceries. Children play. Throughout the small town, pokémon share in the joy and increase it. A few, however, with senses keener to the subtle pulses and pressures of metaphysical energy, seek with wordless voices to warn of danger, or only to express their fear.

A well-dressed woman walking one of the town's narrow paths, wielding a foil-wrapped dish in each hand, passes a young boy and his pokémon. The boy asks what she has made and if he may partake. His pokémon interrupts with a cry harsher than usual. The inept and clumsy pokémon is often plagued with headaches, and so the humans ignore the wail. The woman promises to host the boy's family for dinner soon, and she continues on her way. She is going, with her pie and her casserole, to see the woman who has taken sick. That woman is dying, her neighbors speculate. Her condition has seen a slow worsening these past few weeks. 

She is not the only object of speculation. Strange occurrences surround the laboratory. Assistants are leaving Pallet and keeping silent about why. Pokémon are being spotted near the lab bearing injuries, mostly burn damage. The professor is hard at work, but no one is certain what that work entails. Is he searching for a cure to the woman's illness? Is it a new disease the town should be careful not to spread? Maybe she was simply poisoned by a nidoran while on a walk and was too stubborn to seek medical help. Are the lab assistants sick, too, and in their weakness causing accidents? That would explain the injured pokémon, and the exodus would also follow if the professor is firing them or sending them home to recover. Maybe ...

The townspeople like to speculate. They think about things but not too much. As much as they might talk, the people are more interested in their own lives. Now and again they make a friendly effort, offer a kind gesture, spare a passing thought for the sick woman and the mystery of the lab. They cook casseroles and take injured pokémon to the center; buy flowers and ask after former assistants; shed a tear and sigh. People who would prefer to talk with each other or read a book rather than watch the news, they have yet to hear about the stranger happenings in Viridian City. None of them have seen the dark, blurry photographs of the abominable things in Viridian Forest.

Only one person in town knows what the various news outlets have shared so far, and that is the young man arriving right now. His name is Ash Ketchum. Newly eighteen, he has already seen countless victories in the worlds of winning pokémon tournaments, stopping criminals, and even saving the world. Pallet Town celebrates his return, but it mourns for him as well. Everyone knows he has come to see his ailing mother.


	2. Mrs. Ketchum

Delia Ketchum thanks the doctor at the conclusion of the day’s examination. As she walks him to the door, she begins to breathe again, a pressure begins to lift, and the daylight comes back into her home. Her face softens as she smiles and reaches for the doorknob. The doctor is her only hope, but she is always glad to see him go. 

Speaking a platitude, she opens the door on a hand about to knock. She cries out in surprise, sounding delighted. However, she feels the strength leave her like a lightbulb burning out. It’s another visitor. Further performance. Continued probing. She accepts the dishes and goes politely through the necessary motions until her uninvited guest, however well meaning, decides to leave. 

Walking to her living room, yet to take a seat, Delia hears the knock of yet another visitor. Frozen, almost like a startled animal, she considers leaving the lights off, keeping the television off, not answering the phone, and letting the world think she must be asleep. Then, between animated bursts of knocking, she hears a familiar voice, one that is brash but brings her comfort. Her son is home.

All she has to do is smile and tell Ash how happy she is to see him, and he forgets to worry. With little prompting, she has him launching into story after story she doesn’t really follow, regaling himself more than her. It takes too much energy to really listen, so she limits her attention to the sight of his bright face, the sound of his rough voice, and the feeling of his welcome presence.

Noticing the young man is unaccompanied, Delia inquires after Pikachu and asks if Ash brought any of his pokémon with him. Speaking softly for the first time, Ash says he thought he should focus on taking care of his mother and was looking forward, after all, to a quiet vacation from the life he hadn’t left in several years. He reminds her that, of course, he can always stop by a pokémon center and have his pokémon wired to him if things change.

When Delia offers to make tea, Ash makes it instead. When she says she wants to grab the cookies she made for him, Ash insists on grabbing them himself. It matters little that he has no idea where they are, and he refuses to let her tell him, headstrong and foolish as always. Delia smiles, laughing a little for the first time in a while. She thanks her son for his help.

Delia decides to take a nap and falls asleep with no trouble. Later a voice enters, reaching into her fog, and pulls her into awareness. The voice sounds concerned, and it’s growing louder. It asks her a question, again and again. It asks what she’s doing. She repeats the question to herself, musing emptily. Then she’s curious. She asks again. Realizing she has no idea, she asks a third time, serious now. There’s a beat. She hears a scream. Then she realizes it was her own.

She hears her son’s voice telling her the professor is going to call her doctor and that her doctor will be over as soon as possible. Her vision swims, alternating between murky and too bright, but she catches glimpses of what she recognizes as her son. Pressure on her left hand causes her to try to look and to feel with her right hand. She relaxes a little when she realizes Ash is holding her hand. Sitting rigid and seeing nothing, she forces herself to breathe and nothing more. She doesn’t remember why she screamed.

After an interminable period of time, Professor Oak arrives, saying he had thought better of contacting Delia’s doctor, not wanting to fuel gossip in town and further hinder her privacy. Not recognizing the words but following the tones of the conversation, Delia hears Professor Oak explaining and Ash expressing concern then relief then gratitude. Despite the circumstances, as well as because of them, Ash is pleased to meet the professor again, and hearing this in her son’s voice, the woman begins to smile and gradually starts to come out of her shock.


End file.
